On-going
series: Crisis in the Caucasus - 2008
The Russian / Georgian Conflict and Its Impact on AzerbaijanWindow on Eurasia: Original
Blog Article

Eagles Mere, PA, September 29 ­ Many people in both Russia
and the West have failed to understand that "post-Soviet
does not mean anti-Soviet" for the overwhelming majority
of Russians, according to one Russian commentator, and thus they
do not understand either the reasons for Boris Yeltsin's failure
or those behind Vladimir Putin's success.

In an essay posted online last
week, Sergey Chernyakhovsky, who writes frequently about cultural
and political affairs in the Russian Federation, argues that
for Russians now, 'post-Soviet does not mean 'non-Soviet,' but
on the contrary, to something 'arising from Soviet' [life] or
'based on the Soviet [experience]." http://newsland.ru/News/Detail/id/301289/cat/42/

For Russians, unlike for many
in Eastern Europe, the post-Soviet republics and the West, he
suggests, the break with the Soviet past was neither welcome
nor complete, although the meaning of that past for Russians
was very different than many in Moscow and the West have suggested.

Indeed, "to take the 'soviet'
out of the 'post-soviet'" points to "a new cataclysm"
as far as many Russians are concerned. "The system of Soviet
models, symbols and values in one or another form," Chernyakhovsky
writes, "is not only preserved in society but affects all
society and all political forces" - including those who
do not openly proclaim them.

Polls suggest this, he continued,
62 percent of Russians say they "regret" the collapse
of the Soviet Union, while only 28 percent say they do not, and
60 percent say they would like to see the Soviet Union and the
socialist system restored ­ a figure far larger than the
number who vote for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
now.

That last disjunction, Chernyakhovsky
argues, is because Sovietism "was always considered something
more than communism," however great was the connection between
the two.

"In a certain sense,"
he writes, "in the 1970s and 1980s, it was possible to speak
about a new 'Soviet nation,' something understood not as 'a nation
of communists' or even as 'a nation of supporters of Soviet power'
but rather as a nation whose members identified themselves with
the territory of a single union state."

For some, of course, the word
"Soviet" now evokes only negative feelings, but for
most, it has a positive connotation and represents "a certain
world of dreams" to which they would like to return. Even
though the Soviet system did not achieve all it said it was seeking,
in their view, it was trying to realize those "dreams"
and that is what matters.

"Soviet" means for
this large group, Chernyakhovsky continues, industrial development,
victory in World War II, sputnik, gigantist construction projects,
and a feeling of confidence and security that many have now lost.
And consequently, for the members of this group, it means a system
and a time when at least some dreams were realized.

Soviet society then and Russian
society in large measure now was "disappointed" in
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) not so much because
of talk about repressions and mistakes but "because the
party [during the last years of Soviet power] refused to build
communism" as it had promised to do.

And when the party leadership
turned away from communism, Chernyakhovsky says, society responded,
"all right but why do we need a communist party for the
construction of a market? Entirely different people ought to
build it." That was the end of the CPSU but it did not mean
a rejection of Sovietism.

Today, the Moscow analyst
says, "the majority of society wants to receive not something
'non-Soviet' but something 'still better than Soviet.' Not to
return to the 'pre-Soviet," something that can't be realized,
but to find a way somehow to 'the super-soviet,'" if not
the communist future they had been promised.

Like many in Eastern Europe,
in the non-Russian republics, and in the West, Boris Yeltsin
was prepared to reject this Soviet legacy almost entirely, but
that was a major reason for his unpopularity. Vladimir Putin,
on the other hand, not only understood it but embodies it in
his actions ­ and that has been the foundation of his success.

This is confirmed in the polls
as well, Chernyakhovsky points out. Thirty-three percent of the
supporters of Putin believe that their country was going in the
right direction under Lenin, he notes, and another 30 percent
believe that was true under Stalin. And the figures for Medvedev
supporters are similar, 33 percent and 31 percent, respectively.

But ­ and these are the
key figures, the Moscow analyst suggests ­ "only 20
percent of Putin supporters believe that the course of the country
under Yeltsin was correct," while 63 percent consider it
incorrect." Among Medvedev supporters, those figures are
21 percent and 61 percent.

Russia "cannot return to
the pre-Soviet period," he argues, and it will not become
Soviet either. But "post-Soviet society can move forward
and develop only by including in itself and using as a foundation
[at least some of what the Russian people define as] 'Soviet.'"
If that doesn't happen, Chernyakhovsky concludes, then the future
could be bleak indeed.